Chapter 3631: The Effects of the Supreme Roots
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Water root’s efficiency shot through the roof when used along with a Supreme root. Compared to a simple 10 to 20% improvement with regular roots, the Water root gained nearly a 50% improvement in cultivation speed, the average score now reaching close to being the highest score he had received from a non-Supreme root. It was even better than when he had turned his Neutral root into a Water root.
Alex didn’t hesitate to continue the test and tried cultivating with both spirit roots at once. While, like before, his cultivation speed didn’t enhance greatly, it was definitely an improvement.
He finally crossed an average score of 1500, which had only been done previously through his Supreme Yang root, which for all intents and purposes didn’t hold much importance for the test given that it had likely gotten the score thanks to his body.
He still kept that score for research purposes, but he didn’t believe it to be the true score. This was the first true score to reach such a high score without the help of anything else.
’I just can’t believe it. This is such a simple combination and it’s already so good.’
Going by this combination alone, Alex could tell that should he find a way to give Scarlet any sort of Earth root, her cultivation speed would increase. Although, that would be a difficult task given her bloodline, which forced her to have no other roots except a simple Yang root.
Alex did a few more tests with the Metal and Water root, and then removed the Metal root to replace it with a Neutral root, which he could then manipulate to be as great or as weak a Metal root as he wanted it to.
After testing that, Alex understood that it was practically the same result he had received from the Wood and Water root test. The same degree of improvement and the same degree of worsening.
More and more, he was beginning to understand just how they would react, and even guess the score within a range of 50 at this point.
He believed that he didn’t need to actually do any of the other tests as he knew by extrapolation alone what the results would be. However, there were still two mysteries in his mind by the name of Yin and Yang roots that he had to do a proper test for with his Water root.
While in the absence of the two higher elemental roots, the regular elemental roots acted in accordance with the laws of the 5 elemental interactions. But as soon as either Yin or Yang was involved, they added a layer of interaction between them all, changing how they functioned.
A single Yin or Yang root alongside a Water root was perhaps the simplest version of the interaction.
"A Water root is heavily empowered by a Yin root, perhaps even more so than the Metal root, and this is of the Supreme grade as well. Let’s see how this goes."
Alex transplanted his Yin root back into his body. He didn’t regenerate it as he was worried Heaven’s effects on it that he had asked for would be gone if the very same spirit root wasn’t what was used.
Then, he began the series of tests.
Just as expected, perhaps even more so, the Water root ended up being highly empowered by the Yin root, to the point that Alex got a result that was slightly better than what he had received with the Metal root. Although, the difference was close enough that it might as well have been the same thing.
He did the test in the reverse direction and there was practically no change at all from when he tested his Yin Qi. The regular five-elemental energy failed to have any noticeable effects on the Yin and Yang energy, so that was the same in the case of the spirit roots as well.
Just in case, Alex took the Yin root out and replaced it with a Neutral-turned-Yin root to see how that would function. The Yin root produced the same result as if it was alone, despite the fact that the Water root was there. And the Water root produced a weaker result than before, but still much better than its own, as even the weaker Yin root had certainly helped improve its efficiency compared to when it was alone.
Alex then moved his test to the Yang root and Water root. The Yang root heavily influenced the Water root too, but in the opposite direction, and the test showed it almost immediately.
The Water root became much worse than even when he had used the Fire root. Perhaps, if the Fire root had been at the Supreme grade, it still wouldn’t have resulted in this bad a result.
And unsurprisingly, the Yang root was not affected in the slightest by the Water root at all, delivering the same above-1500 average score as it had on its own.
Even when the two were used together, the Water root had almost no effect on his overall cultivation session at all.
Alex took in the information and did his best to understand the nuances between each and every combination. It was such a familiar concept for him that he wanted to skip it all and consider himself knowledgeable in this matter. But he couldn’t let his understanding of elements delude him into thinking it was the same with the roots as well.
Maybe it was, but he had to test it still.
Although, just to be much faster this time around, he didn’t test every single scenario with every combination. That much he could rely on his newly forming understanding already, instead of his original knowledge.
The next series of tests also took much less time. With Wood root, he could skip out on Water root. With Earth root, he could skip out on Water and Wood root, and so on.
By the time Alex reached the Metal root, he had tested it with all four regular roots. So now, it was time to test it with the two Supreme roots.
Alex was excited for this as this was his first attempt at testing two Supreme roots.
